San Francisco Chronicle

After a while, it becomes clear there are only so many grotesque Roth motifs that the human body lends itself to. But that doesn’t stop him from going on and on, again and again.

If “No Way Home” had the gee-whiz thrills of an original “Star Wars,” then “Brand New Day” has the mature melancholy of an “The Empire Strikes Back,” a movie that it references.

As usual, Araki gets mileage out of his bold art direction and color-saturated images, but the film’s greatest strength is its cast, including memorable supporting players who keep things humming.

Despite a plot that goes in and out of consciousness and a 102-minute runtime that approaches bloat, The Dink matches “Barb and Star” in laughs per scene, and eventually, a sense of hopefulness. Don’t wait for it to be rediscovered.

Like David Lynch, Refn risks self-parody to transport us from life’s sorrows through beautiful visions. If you’re lucky, its flaws won’t spoil the movie’s capacity to take you away.

For all its modern filmmaking techniques, “The Odyssey” is a throwback to the mid-20th century, when Cinemascope was new and epics were event pictures. It falls a bit short of greatness — it doesn’t speak to our times like “Oppenheimer” or dazzle like “The Dark Knight” — but it’s a magnificent achievement nonetheless.

If you like Oliver’s poems, Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World is a documentary to see. If you don’t know Mary Oliver, this is a chance to discover something special.

Ultimately, “Evil Dead Burn” delivers more or less what longtime fans have come to expect: outlandish gore buoyed by filmmaking that’s just assured enough to keep the carnage from getting monotonous.

What’s a real head-scratcher is how it can feel so lifeless with real people as compared to the animated original.

Young Washington gets credit for attempting the impossible and for succeeding too, at least to the extent of being entertaining.